Marvel's Midnight Suns Legendary Edition

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG from Firaxis, the studio behind XCOM 2, and it does something genuinely strange: it takes a roster of Marvel superheroes, wraps them in a card-based combat system, and then insists you also hang out with them between missions like it's a supernatural boarding school simulator. That last part is either going to click for you immediately or drive you away within the first three hours. If you are somewhere in the middle, give it five missions. It earns the weirdness. Combat is built around a hand of cards drawn from a custom deck tied to each hero you field. You bring three heroes per mission, and the cards you equip for each one define how they perform in the field. Iron Man plays nothing like Blade, who plays nothing like Nico Minoru, and that distinction holds up well past the early hours. Positioning matters. Environmental objects can be kicked, thrown, and chained into knockback combos that feel genuinely satisfying once you start threading multi-enemy clears in a single activation. The Heroism system rewards aggressive, stylish play by building a secondary resource you spend on more powerful moves, which creates a nice loop where passive defense actively costs you. Difficulty modifiers let you tune the experience from story-friendly to properly punishing, and the higher settings expose real mechanical depth that casual play can obscure. Between missions you manage the Abbey, a home base you share with heroes including Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, and others. You can hang out one-on-one with each character, run morning walks with Magik, watch movies with Blade, and slowly build friendship meters that unlock passive combat bonuses. This social layer is more substantial than it sounds and is clearly modeled on Persona's social links. Whether it lands depends on your tolerance for Marvel banter. Some of it is genuinely charming. Some of it is the kind of dialogue that would feel at home in a licensed mobile game. The writing is uneven but the system underneath it is real: maxing out friendships changes how certain heroes behave in combat and opens additional story scenes that add context to the main plot. Choices matter in small, cumulative ways rather than branching dramatically, so do not go in expecting a Baldur's Gate moral dilemma tree. The Legendary Edition bundles in the Season Pass content, which adds four additional playable heroes: Deadpool, Venom, Morbius, and Storm. Each comes with its own mission chain and unique card set, and Deadpool in particular is a highlight both mechanically and tonally. The 23 premium cosmetic skins in the Legendary Premium Pack are strictly visual but cover most of the main roster with alternate looks. If you care about hero aesthetics in cutscenes and the Abbey social scenes, they add up. If you do not, skip straight to the base game discussion. What does not work as well is pacing. The mid-game stretches too long before the story escalates, and some of the optional friendship quests amount to fetch objectives that pad runtime without adding much. The Abbey exploration is a bit shallow as an open space, built more for set dressing than discovery. The upgrade and crafting systems for cards and gear are functional but not exciting. None of this breaks the game, but players expecting tight XCOM mission discipline throughout will hit friction in the downtime sequences. For fans of Firaxis tactics, deck-building systems, or anyone who wants their superhero game to have genuine mechanical teeth underneath the fan service, Midnight Suns delivers more than its rocky initial reception suggested. It is best approached as a slow build rather than a lean action experience.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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